Daylit buildings, combined with automatic photocontrols, have enormous potential to deliver substantial energy and peak demand savings. As a result, utility-run efficiency programs such as Savings by Design, and the Title 24 Energy Efficiency Standards now promote the greater use of daylighting as an important energy-efficiency strategy in commercial buildings. However, the current criteria for designing properly daylit buildings are simplistic, static, and can even mislead designers into creating buildings that consume more energy, rather than less. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that the comfort and satisfaction of building occupants with the operation of the daylighting and controls systems is a primary factor in the success of daylighting. As a result, the industry has set a goal to develop a new set of daylighting design criteria that are based on a dynamic analysis of varying solar position and climate relative to building design. These new metrics should establish acceptable criteria for visual and thermal comfort and facilitate faster market penetration for the use of daylighting. This project, cofunded by SCE, will develop a three-year plan for new daylighting metrics and get them adopted in appropriate design standards.
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